Recess

A ring of children seated Indian style,
	a girl deciding which head to tap
		as she orbits them in her pretty dress

saying Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck.
	Every boy wants to be the goose,
		to bolt up and run down this girl

before she makes it around 
	to the spot he vacated. Once 
		they saw her trip and fall, exposing 
		
a lovely backside covered in lace.
	Maybe that is why their heads rise 
		like charmed snakes as she passes
		
saying Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck,
	annoying the girls in the circle, who frown, 
		and attracting now the attention 

of their teacher, leaning against a tree, 
	bringing her gaze down from the clouds 
		where she had been pondering two men-

the one she recently broke up with 
	filling her with regret about the much 
		better, more beautiful one from college. 

Now she is twenty-nine, on perhaps 
	the last warm day of September, 
		the smartest, prettiest girl in the class 

is going Duck Duck Duck Duck Duck 
	in an endless left hand turn, 
		and she can't figure out whether
		
the girl is powerful or helpless, 
	as she blinks back tears and blows 
		the whistle to end this.